For SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to be a cost-effective addition to your digital marketing arsenal, it is important to use it properly. Even if SEO has gone through a lot of updates and transformations, the basic principles of it remain the same. There are several articles available on the internet on how to efficiently use SEO to your business’s advantage. But what about SEO myths?

SEO is very critical to understand properly and in-depth to be used effectively. Digital marketing is all about securing that first page of Google search results. A wrong step here and there will make you fall drastically in the search results. There is a lot of misleading information out there and some myths revolving around SEO need to be debunked right now.

Here are the top SEO myths, debunked:

Myth 1: Longer the content length, better the rankings
Reality: When it comes to the length of a particular content, Google does it into consideration. But, it does not take unnecessary fluffs and fillers. So, until and unless your content truly needs in-detail explanation, do not make unnecessary additions to make it humongous in length.

Myth 2: New links improve the rankings.If not, they are bad and should be gotten rid of.
Reality: This is far from being the truth. The patented Random Docs Algorithm that Google has cleverly figures out the actively involved SEO’s that are carrying out SERP manipulation. This algorithm gives your site a negative movement in SERP instead of giving it a positive one because of those new links.

Myth 3: Keyword Research is useless
Reality: It is practically impossible to look for anything without using the right keywords. Keywords are everything. Plus, the Hummingbird algorithm update rather shifted positive focus to keyword. Keyword targeting is seriously very important as even authority platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram the rest depend on it. Although keyword ratio is not something that you need to be troubled with anymore, you have to think from the perspective of a common searcher regarding a particular topic in order to come up with the best keywords.
Keywords act as a compass for the SEO campaigns that you come up with. Keywords are also essential in tracking progress.

Myth 4: Guest blogging is out of date
Reality: This is not at all true and guest blogging is still very much there. In fact, guest blogging is a very important element for increasing your exposure and creating brand awareness. Google does not consider posts that have bad content, be it from guest blogging or any other type of content. Google penalizes for bad content. Not for guest blogging. This is a very misleading myth and was much needed to be cleared out.

There are certain tips that you need to follow when guest blogging in order to be on the safe side.
They are:

Avoiding spamming blogs that lack in unique content

Avoid chasing links and write for the blogs related to your niche

Keeping the links to your site within the content itself for it to carry more weight

Creating high-quality content for your target audience and be as interactive as possible by replying to comments

Myth 5: SEO being dead
Reality: SEO is such a vast and dynamic field that it would be very wrong to say that it is dead. SEO is an ever-changing organism that constantly goes through algorithm changes and updates. It is far from being dead.
Digital marketing is all about adopting to the latest technological updates as soon as possible. SEO algorithm updates are something that you need to stay up-to-date with. If you stick to outdates techniques that are no longer considered by Google, it is obvious for your SEO techniques to fail miserably.